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Tuesday, July 22, 2025
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Around Town

Mind-bending Paradox Museum is in Mumbai. It even has a Bal Gangadhar Tilak illusion

The first Indian branch of the global Paradox Museum brand offers 55 reality-defying installations across 15 rooms. It’s a made-for-Instagram experience.

Dacoit hunts to wooing boss’s daughter—the many facets of legendary IPS officer Vijay Raman

Late IPS officer Vijay Raman’s memoir ‘Did I Really Do All This?’ received an emotional launch with heartfelt tributes from friends, including Najeeb Jung, at Delhi’s IIC.

150 translated titles, poetry, music—new campaign familiarising Indians with French literature

The week-long celebration, Pardon My French!, kicked off on 20 September with a book launch that included a quick tour of the featured titles and engaging conversations.

A Bengali play robs Gandhi of the Mahatma tag. Reveals the dark side of idealism

Sujan Mukhopadhyay staged his play, ‘Mahatma versus Gandhi’, on 2 October, depicting the binary between the man and the Mahatma.

25 years of eco-sensitive zones is a wasted period. Over 400 ESZs exist only on paper

Retired PCCF BK Singh explained that the Centre has been pressured by the states to redraw the boundaries of previously notified ESZs just to ease the concerns of mining and quarrying lobbies.

Shantiniketan to Peking—Tagore searched for a cultural centre of gravity that was not West

This year, Tagore’s visit centenary has been commemorated across China — at poetry fairs, Beijing temple, campus events, and seminars.

LGBT+ people hide at work, can’t claim queer spaces easily either. Bengaluru fest is freeing

Bengaluru queer festival Maya Bazaar featured a panel discussion on inclusion in corporate spaces. Companies are reluctant to move beyond performative gestures, panellists said.

WhatsApp is like a yogic concept of Maya. New book inspires many names

Sunetra Sen Narayan and Shalini Narayanan's book The WhatsApp India Story looks at how the app has earned a reputation as a hotbed of misinformation, especially during elections.

Why does Ramcharitmanas have a crow narrator? Bhushundi is Tulsidas’ alter ego

Scholar Philip Lutgendorf brought a unique perspective on the centuries-old text by Awadhi poet Tulsidas during his talk at IIC, Delhi.

Mystery of the vanished pavilion in Delhi’s IIC. ‘Nobody knows where, how it disappeared’

A panel of architecture experts unpeeled the planning and construction of landmarks designed by architect Joseph Allen Stein, including Lodhi Garden and the India International Centre.

On Camera

Bihar mimics 19th-century American South. Citizenship is now weaponised to exclude voters

Disenfranchisement by institutional fiat is profoundly undemocratic. The effect of the ECI's new documentary process in Bihar will tilt the scales in favour of the BJP.

India-US set to ink mini trade deal soon, reach understanding on agricultural & dairy products

Mini deal will likely see no cut in 10% baseline tariff on Indian exports announced by Trump on 2 April, it is learnt, but additional 26% tariffs are set to be reduced.

Not just AK-203, India & Russia to jointly manufacture AK-19 and PPK-20 for domestic use and export 

India-Russia JV is also racing to deliver 7,000 more AK-203 assault rifles by 15 Aug. These are currently being made with 50% indigenisation and this will surge to 100% by 31 December.

Strategic partner one day, tactical nightmare the next: India’s learning Trumplomacy the hard way

Public, loud, upfront, filled with impropriety and high praise sometimes laced with insults. This is what we call Trumplomacy. But the larger objective is the same: American supremacy.